非英语专业本科生学术英语写作中的文献引用特征分析

Citation Practice by University Students in English Writing for Academic Purposes

文献引用是学术写作最显著特征之一。作者通过引用前人的研究,既建立研究网络,又构建社会知识,确立学术社团成员身份。本研究通过对61名非英语专业低年级本科生的122篇议论文的分析,探讨本科生通用学术英语写作中的文献引用特征。研究结果显示,学生引用频次偏低;引用的种类主要是网络百科全书,期刊、专著引用较少;选取文献的标准是易获得和易于理解,对可靠性关注不够;在引用的文本形式方面,动词支配融入式引用过度使用,而名称融入式和非融入式使用不足;最主要使用的引用策略是最简单的独立归属策略。文献引用应是学术英语教学的重点之一,其习得是一个循序渐进的过程。

Citation is one of the most prominent features of academic writing through which the writers establish the research network based on previous studies so as to construct the social knowledge and demonstrate the membership of the academic community. Through the analysis of 122 argumentative essays by 61 second-year non-English majors, this paper attempts to reveal the citation characteristic of English writing by undergraduates. The findings show that students used few citations. Although they selected material from a wide range of sources, they cited significantly more frequently from the Internet encyclopedias than from academic journals or monographs. The main criteria guiding students' selection of sources were accessibility and ease of understanding, while reliability was not their major concern. Integral-verb controlling citation was overused while integral-naming and nonintegral citation was underused. In cases of citation strategies, attribution, rhetorically the simplest one, was used predominantly. Importance should be given to source use in teaching English for Academic Purposes and the acquisition of citation skills requires long-year practice.